Fire Season Approaches, Be Ready!

While the end of summer is on the horizon, and families and kiddos getting ready to go back to school, we are now entering into the heart of fire season.

So, I want to remind folks to dig up your Ready Nevada County 2019 Ready, Set, Go! Handbook and reread it to make sure you are up to date. If you do not have a copy, you can obtain one by contacting the Nevada County Office of Emergency Services at 530-265-7000. We are going to start seeing more and more Red Flag Warnings in the coming months.

A Red Flag Warning is an alert issued by the National Weather Service when conditions are just right for the possibility of an extreme fire. This means that days that are very hot, have strong winds (25MPH+), low humidity and the possibility of dry lightning strikes, create the perfect conditions for extreme wildfire.

These are the same conditions that PG&E and other public utilities are closely monitoring to determine whether to initiate planned power outages in those areas to prevent downed powerlines from sparking a wildfire. Folks can download a weather app on their smart phones to receive Red Flag Warnings at weather.gov/subscribe.

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Additionally, Nevada County is collaborating with the County’s various Fire Departments to implement a Red Flag Program where the County and various fire station locations will actually fly a Red Flag on their flag poles during Red Flag Warning days to help better inform the public on the dangers of wildfire.

If you have not already done so, please sign up for Code Red to receive emergency notifications in the event of a crisis. Code Red is not only used to alert people regarding wildfire evacuations, but is also used by the Sheriff’s Office to notify individuals of other dangers in the area. You can register for Code Red by going to http://www.mynevadacounty.com or by calling 211. So Ready, Set, Go! Lets make sure our homes, our loved ones, and our neighborhoods are prepared together.

In other news, I want to extend my gratitude to a couple of individuals that have served on the Penn Valley Area Municipal Advisory Council (PVMAC) for the past two years. Andrew Burton, Stephanie Stevens, and Michael Sullivan served for the last two years on the PVMAC, which was formed in 2017 as a formal committee for the purposes of providing recommendations on land use and development issues specific to the Penn Valley area. As such, we are now taking applications for individuals interested in serving.

Applicants will need to apply by completing an application with the Clerk of the Board’s Office. If you are interested in serving on the PVMAC, please contact the Clerk of the Board at clerk ofboard@co.nevada.ca.us or at myself 530-265-1480.

We will be appointing three new members to represent a good cross section of the community to provide for a wide representation of our area.

And as the summer is coming to a close, our Planning Department will be re-engaging the community in developing the Penn Valley Area Plan.

For those of you that are not aware, the Planning Department works closely with community on developing area plans for communities in the unincorporated areas of the County that can help drive changes to the County’s General Plan, as well as help identify economic development opportunities over time.

The last Penn Valley Area Plan was adopted back in 2000 and is now almost 20 years old. Planning staff has held four community workshops thus far where community members were tasked with identifying what they would like to see in their community in the next 10-15 years.

I want to also emphasize that these meetings are for everyone, including our youth and teenagers. This will be their community in the coming years, so it is important to embed the ideas of the next generation into the Penn Valley Area Plan.

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